"Copper, now selling for about $3.60 a pound, traded for about $1.40 a year ago."

$7.94/kg (2006)$3.09/kg (2005)

When you think of copper, the first thing that comes to your mind is a penny.
That might have been true if you had lived during the years of 1793-1836.
Yep! You guess right! That was the last year when pennies were actually
made completely out of copper like all commodities. The price of copper
has fluctuated throughout the years, beginning with 22 cents a pound in
1850 to as high as $3 a pound currently (see chart for more details). Now
pennies are made out of 97.6% zinc and 2.4% copper.

Cooper is the one of the most common and useful metals for over several thousand
years. In ancient times, the Island of Cyprus provided the main sources
of copper for the people who lived near the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore,
it was called the Cyprian metal, translated into Roman as cuprum (Anglicized
into English copper). It was also one of the first known metals (around
8000 BC) that humans used to create tools and weapons with. Later, people
in the Middle East discovered how to make bronze by melting copper with
arsenic. The Romans then discovered how to make brass and began to make coins with it around 100 BC.

There are four great things about copper that made it essential for our industry. These properties are:

Malleable: Copper can be easily bend into shape.

Conductivity (thermal and electrical): Copper is probably second to silver in electrical conductivity. Silver, however is expensive compare to copper. Therefore, it's most commonly use among many regular products.